Resolutions to make (as decided by me)

By Roy Bragg :
December 27, 2012
: Updated: December 29, 2012 8:41pm

Instead, use these. I've come up with some citywide resolutions that will make everyone's lives better. Plus, if we're all doing the same thing, we can serve as a citywide support system for each other.

They appear in no particular order ...

1. ... except for this one: Don't empty your guns into the sky on New Year's Eve. People are very nervous about random gunfire these days, so it's bad form. I realize that you're very happy because we survived another bitter presidential election and the Mayan Doomsday and the “Jersey Shore” finale, but this isn't the way to celebrate. Stay at home and get drunk and humiliate yourself with a lampshade on your head. Save your ammo for a Spurs NBA title, or for July 4. Also, remember about a little thing called “gravity” — if hot lead goes up, then hot lead is coming back down.

2. Take time to embrace the good things in life — caldo de pollo on cold days, Popsicles on hot days, football on Friday night and dancing on Saturday nights.

3. Stop complaining about the traffic. It's never going to get any better. The state and city can build all of the cloverleaf and weird turn-around intersections they want, but any immediate improvement will be incremental. Then there will be more cars and things are back to sluggish in a few days.

3A. Don't text while you're in traffic, because you're probably doing it while you drive, too. Instead, use your downtime to practice mouthing obscenities at other drivers. I'm not suggesting fights. But if you learn effective mouthing, you learn a life skill. As long as you can make eye contact, you will be able to communicate across a loud dining table, a crowded conference room, or in a packed store-checkout line.

4. Go ahead and eat the last pork chop. Yes, you want to lose weight, but you won't get serious about it until your last pair of jeans is too tight to wear. Then you'll get serious about dropping some pounds. Until then, go for it. And don't forget to mop up that gravy with a piece of buttered white bread.

5. Give up on the Cowboys. You can still watch the games, but don't expect them to win anything. No one needs that kind of stress 16 times a year.

6. Stop blaming the federal government for everything. It's intellectually dishonest to claim, on one hand, that the government is full of incompetent hacks who can't regulate their way out of a flo-thru tea bag, while simultaneously complaining they are smart enough to pull off any conspiracy. Your life will be much more harmonious if you learn to roll with the punches. And if you need to blame anyone, go with the old reliables — mom, spouse, boss and co-workers.

7. Go ahead and keep blaming the Texas Legislature for everything. Those clowns could screw up the recipe for boiling water. A generation of school kids has been taught a bill of goods with TAKS and STAAR testing. Now, only three years after mandating the STAAR boondoggle, they want to change it again. Never trust anyone earning less than minimum wage — legislators get $7,200 a year — to make public policy that works.

8. Please replace that ratty Spurs flag that flies from your car antenna. You bought it in 1999. That's nearly 14 years ago, folks. Your plan may be to hold on to the flag until Tim Duncan and Gregg Popovich retire, but the rest of us want you to shell out $9.95 for a new one. Please?

9. Stop telling the ghost story about the ghosts on Shane Road. I don't know about the origin of the school bus wreck, but the next time you go there, get out of your car. If you squat down low, you can clearly see that the road angles downward toward the train tracks, even though it appears to rise when you're in a car. I apologize in advance to every bored teen in the city who had planned to go there late at night in 2013 to squeal about it.